The invention relates generally to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to a board-to-board connector for transmitting differential signals.
With the ongoing trend toward smaller, faster, and higher performance electrical components, it has become increasingly important for the electrical interfaces along the electrical paths to also operate at higher frequencies and at higher densities with increased throughput.
In a traditional approach for interconnecting circuit boards, one circuit board serves as a backplane or main board and the other as a daughter board. Rather than directly connecting the circuit boards, the backplane typically has a connector, commonly referred to as a header, that includes a plurality of signal pins or contacts which connect to conductive traces on the backplane. The daughter board connector, commonly referred to as a receptacle, also includes a plurality of contacts or pins. When the header and receptacle are mated, signals can be routed between the two circuit boards.
The migration of electrical communications to higher data rates has resulted in more stringent requirements for density and throughput while maintaining signal integrity. At least some board-to-board connectors carry differential signals wherein each signal requires two lines that are referred to as a differential pair. For better performance, a ground may be associated with each differential pair. The ground provides shielding for the differential pair to reduce noise or crosstalk.
A need remains for a connector having higher speed capability with reduced noise.